What I Ate Today

At the Slow Food Market at the Festival Hall (A South London Food Trip – Part 1 Slow Food Festival) was a man selling garlic from a bicycle.  Unmistakably French, he did not have many takers for the raw bulbs of garlic he was giving out as samples!  There was a choice of white, pink and red garlic on sale. Complimented with a lovely selection of onions and shalottes, the stall was artistic and stereotypical in equal measures.

Earlier in the year, I decided that I would grow my own garlic. My research was not thorough and involved Google’s “I’m feeling lucky” button which took me to Garlic Central Website. I had read online that it a Pagan tradition to plant garlic on the shortest day of the year.  So come the 2008 winter solstice, I was determined to plant my garlic.  I learned that it was a bad idea to plant shop bought garlic, which can be sprayed with chemicals to prevent the bulbs from sprouting shoots whilst still on the shop shelves.  The best stuff to plant was stuff bought direct from the grower. This was exactly what I was looking for; garlic direct from the grower with which to start my garlic empire.

The French garlic man said that he sold three types of garlic, two of which were grown on his cousin’s farm in Brittany and the third from a farm further south.  I asked if it was sprayed with chemicals and was told, “non, whissout the chemical…how do you say…organo”.  I said that I wanted to plant the garlic and he immediately said that the pink and the red would grow, but that the white would not be good to plant.  Since it was a market and I thought the asking price of £1 per bulb was a bit steep, I haggled a bit and pleasingly got a large pink bulb and a large red bulb for 50p.

I planted the individual cloves about 10cm apart, 2cm deep in grow bag compost left over from my tomatoes earlier in the year.  If all goes to plan, the bulbs will grow along with other spring flowers.  Apparently, the garlic is ready for harvest when the leaves turn brown and start to wither.  You then pull the bulbs up, hang to dry for a week or two (somewhere cool and dry) and then brush off the soil.  One clove grows into one bulb, so I’m on for 50 bulbs of galic next year. That’s the theory, if there’s anything to harvest, I’ll post an update next year and be searching out some garlic recipes. I have heard of one already, apparently it’s a taste sensation…garlic bread…at least that’s what Peter Kay says anyhow!